The new video demonstrates Atlas’s remarkable agility, as it walks across a warehouse floor, picks up items, skips up stairs, jumps, tosses items, and even performs a backflip. These impressive feats are made possible by Atlas’s 28 hydraulic joints, 5.6 mph speed, real-time perception, and model-predictive control.
Grippers and Object Manipulation
One significant improvement in the latest version of Atlas is the addition of grippers, which allows the robot to manipulate objects in its environment. This skill is crucial for a humanoid robot to excel in work environments designed for humans, such as manufacturing, factory work, and construction. Atlas’s new grippers enable it to pick up a slab of wood, lift a bag, toss it to a construction worker, and push a large wooden block off a ramp. The ability to manipulate objects is a vital aspect of humanoid robots, as it allows them to perform tasks that are typically done by humans. This feature sets Atlas apart from previous versions, which lacked hands and were primarily focused on movement and agility.